In the vacuum of space beyond Earth, a triangular, thick, flat cuboid floated silently.
Inside the Domo, Sersi, the Eternal who could manipulate molecular matter and transform nonliving substances or objects into other things, continued softly:
"Kingo's ability to fire energy blasts, Gilgamesh's strength, Druig's mental control. Even mutants keep developing stranger, more complex powers. Though there is still a vast gap between them and the power we can attain, could there truly be no connection among them?"
After hearing Sersi's question, the Eternals all turned their eyes toward their leader, Ajak.
Ever since they had first discovered a blue-gray-skinned man born in Mesopotamia five thousand years ago, during the Early Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt—En Sabah Nur—they had been curious about the mutants who began emerging during that era.
Some among them had even proposed capturing the mutant progenitor later known as Apocalypse for research, but Ajak had sternly put a stop to it.
She believed that, since this was a manifestation of humanity's natural evolution, the Eternals should not interfere.
After Apocalypse's strange disappearance, the nascent wave of human mutation and evolution had abruptly come to a halt, only rising on a large scale again more than half a century later.
Ajak opened her mouth, then silently closed it again. In the end, she did not directly answer Sersi's question.
"All the answers will be revealed in a few decades—less than half a human century. When our mission is finally complete, Lord Arishem will bring us back to our homeworld. Phastos, can the Domo observe the changes taking place on Earth right now?"
The others were not satisfied by Ajak's evasive words. Over the years, she had kept postponing every conflict by saying that the "mission" would soon be complete. But as the dark-skinned, stout Phastos waved his